We were close to avoiding the A-Rod story today, until someone emailed us this whopper from a writer at the Sun-Sentinel named Michael Cunningham. Buckle up (bold emphasis ours):

In this appetite for salaciousness, celebrity and scandal in sports, I see yet another sign of the decline of civilization. I fear this is part of the dumbing down of America that was satirized in the cult film Idiocracy, which imagined a future where a bombastic professional wrestler is president — and it didn’t really seem that far-fetched.

America caring that arguably the best player in baseball may have had an “affair of the heart” with the most successful female recording artist of all time equates to the decline of civilization? Someone take away this man’s computer, STAT. Doesn’t Mr. Cunningham realize that the American public has devoured this kind of sports-celebrity story for at least 54 years now?

As for the Lenny Kravitz stuff, it’s 100 percent not true. But if you read this Page Six item, it makes you wonder if A-Rod did the right thing getting in bed with an “entertainment” manager. (NY Post)

Add a new name to A-Rod’s hopper: Alicia Marie, a fitness freak (he really has a thing for these types, huh?) who used to date John Rocker. But she just claims A-Rod would “lend a sympathetic ear” at her apartment when she was going through a divorce. A-Rod’s such a swell guy. (New York Daily News)